How To Make Event Partnerships Effective And Successful

The world we live in is becoming increasingly visual. We need something that's engaging and will connect with us on an emotional level.

Collaborating with the right partner can change the outcome of an event for the better — it can help attract new audiences, decrease costs, and boost brand authority. But how do you start a partnership? How do you attract the right partners, get them to commit, and then get the most value out of it?

In this Run of Show Weekly video, Splash's CEO Ben Hindman, discusses how to make the most of your event partnerships so it's a win-win for everyone involved.

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Video Transcript:

Are you looking for partners and sponsors for your next event? Well, listen up. Today, we're gonna walk through my strategy for attracting and signing terrific partners.

Your New Secret Weapon: Partnerships

My secret weapon when throwing events is to partner up, early and often. It's how I've accomplished some of the most extravagant events I've ever thrown on a shoestring budget.

Partners are incredible — they help you bring in new audiences, they can often decrease line items, and they can often make your event look super legit. So, how do you get great partners?

The way to think about it is to identify it into stages. You find the right partner, you wanna pitch that partner, and then you really wanna lock it in, and execute, and get the most value out of that partnership.

We're gonna walk through each three of those things right now.

Make Your Event Flow

Let's walk through a real life scenario. We're throwing a 100-person event. So, in order to fill the room with 100 people, I like to send out about 10 times the number of invitations, so that's inviting around 1,000 people.

Then, I like to try and get about 4 times the ratio of RSVPs to the capacity of the room. That comes to 400 people. In an event, you typically see what's called a flow, in and out of the venue throughout the event. You're really gonna try to get about 150 people or more to actually attend the event, so we're gonna look for about a 1.5x attendance rate.

The goal that we're gonna talk about today, is how to improve the percentage between RSVPs and attendees.

2. Combine areas of expertise

Even if you’re looking for a snapshot of an adorable dog, you definitely won’t be disappointed.

Stage 1: Finding The Perfect Partner

Finding the right partner is one of the most important things you can do, and it's relatively simple. You are looking for somebody who shares a similar audience set to what you have. Somebody who is targeting a similar audience. If they wanna reach your audience and you wanna reach theirs, there's a strong likelihood that they're gonna be a good partner.

And the hope is that they can be a loudspeaker for you. I love partnering with media companies, so if you can find a digital publisher or a broadcaster, some sort of online presence with an audience, that's a great partner, and that's a partner that you wanna bring on for potentially free.

They also might be able to sell advertisement and bring on a liquor sponsor or additional sponsors. I love partnering with publishers.

Ask yourself first: are they worth the trouble?

Do they have bandwidth. Do they have money? Do they have time? Are they willing to work with you on this?

I'll save you a whole bunch of time right now. If you're trying to identify a partner, and you're trying to get them to work with you, and it's like pushing a boulder up a mountain, I would say move along. The path of least resistance is always the one with partnerships. If they're into it, they're gonna work with you, and if they're not into it, you need to just move along and find a different partner. I'm telling you, I just saved you a lot of time.

3-Step Reciprocity

I've developed a three-step process to use reciprocity to drive the RSVP to attendance ratio. The three steps are: (1) get that attendee to invest, (2) confirm that they've made a good decision, and (3) lock it in.

Stage 2: Pitching to Partners

Let's say you've found the right partner, and you're ready to rock, and you really wanna get them on board. The next step is the pitch. What I'd recommend is thinking about the pitch in about four different steps.

1. Send them an email.

Quick, to the point, show that you're all business and you're gonna host an incredible event. The best way to do so is to identify who is gonna be there. Think about who that partner wants to target and include that in the subject line or in the first sentence of your email for who is gonna be at this event.

2. Get them on the phone.

A quick, 15-minute phone call is all you need, and in this process, you're gonna ask them a lot of the questions that you're gonna need in order to create a one-sheet to pitch them on.

Now, you're gonna have to have created this one-sheet template beforehand. I can't stress this enough, don't send them the one-sheet or a deck before you get on a call with them, because they're gonna answer a lot of the most important questions on that first call. Get that one-sheet ready, but send it right after the call. And along with the one-sheet, or as a follow-up to the one-sheet, you're really gonna wanna identify all the steps: what do they need to do to sign up and what will they need to do to make this partnership successful.

Note: If you're interested and you're gonna be pitching for partnerships soon, I included some of my best templates as a downloadable in the article with this video. So feel free to go download that and use my one-sheet template. But this is the general outline of what I think makes the best one-sheets. The point of a one-sheet is to communicate visually how legit and real your event is.

3. Give them event details that feel real.

What you're gonna wanna do is really bring this event to life. Give it a title. Make it feel like an event. Don't forget, an event has a date, it has a time. That's what an event has. It has specifics, and details, and logistics already baked in.

Even if those are TBD, don't make them TBD, give at least work in progress text. Then what you wanna do is outline the when and the where of the event. If it's a cool venue, take pictures of the venue, throw that right on the one-sheet. Again, you wanna make this feel very real.

Who is going to be at this event? You wanna brag here. You're gonna have celebrities, VIPs, influencers, press, clients, prospects. You might even go as far as to list all of the different titles of the people who will be attending, or maybe even attendees from previous events is a great place to put here. You really wanna brag about your audience or at least your target audience.

You wanna get people excited about this event. Don't forget, they need to fall in love with this event in order to partner with you on it.

4. Tell them what's in it for them.

Lastly, outline the benefits that they're gonna get. Are they going to get access to the list after the event, VIP tickets? Are they gonna get inclusion in pre and post-event promotion? Are they gonna get logos on the website? What are they going to get by partnering with you on this event?

You wanna list out all those things on a one-sheet, not a deck. A one-sheet is one sheet. If you can put this in a one-sheet and put it in somebody's inbox, even, copy and paste it into the email, you're gonna find that you're gonna have a much higher hit rate. Again, you're gonna send that one-sheet after that first phone call.

Stage 3: Get Them to Sign a Contract

Now, let's say that you got this partner excited, and they're ready to go. This is the important next step. To lock them in, there's only one way to lock in any partnership, and it's with a contract. You need to get that signature. We also have great templates of our partnership contracts in the article below, too. So take a look at those. You don't need to reinvent the wheel there. There are some great templates.

The next step to locking it in is to treat every partner really like a sponsor, like a paying sponsor. These people, whether or not they're adding value or they're giving you money, you need to treat them as if they have really paid to be part of this event.

That means consistent follow-up emails. That means being attentive to their needs. That means sending them a really beautiful recap report after the event. I find that if I treat my partners like sponsors and I really put that in my brain and in the brains of the people on my team, I get a lot more out of that partnership. They end up coming to the table and really delivering the value that I originally expected.

Last but not least, own it. Own the entire process. I’ve found that the best way to really get the most out of a partnership is to put one person on your team on that partner. Make sure that reminder email goes out. Make sure they bring their brand VIPs. Make sure that they have strong collateral at the event, that their booth is set up on time. It's that type of stuff. Giving them a very clear and thoughtful Gantt chart, leading them through that process, that really squeezes all of the juice out of a potential partnership.

Increasing Your Budget

The next step to locking it in is to treat every partner really like a sponsor, like a paying sponsor. These people, whether or not they're adding value or they're giving you money, you need to treat them as if they have really paid to be part of this event. That means consistent follow-up emails. That means being attentive to their needs. That means sending them a really beautiful recap report after the event. I find that if I treat my partners like sponsors and I really put that in my brain and in the brains of the people on my team, I get a lot more out of that partnership. They end up coming to the table and really delivering the value that I originally expected.

Last but not least, own it. Own the entire process. I’ve found that the best way to really get the most out of a partnership is to put one person on your team on that partner. Make sure that reminder email goes out. Make sure they bring their brand VIPs. Make sure that they have strong collateral at the event, that their booth is set up on time. It's that type of stuff. Giving them a very clear and thoughtful Gantt chart, leading them through that process, that really squeezes all of the juice out of a potential partnership.

Partnerships = Grow Your Audience

That's how I think about executing a strong partnership strategy for my events. I try to find partnerships that share our audience, I try to pitch them with a one-sheet, and then I try to lock them in with a contract and a thoughtful plan for next steps. As I said, this has been my secret weapon. It's been how I've been able to grow my entire attendee list. It's how I've been able to make my events seem a lot more legit than they actually are, and I hope that it works for you, too.

Check it out, and make sure to check out those downloadables. We've got the contract on the website, and we have the one-sheet on the website, and I hope you find those useful for your efforts.

Don't know where to start?

Download the Partnership Agreement Template.

Download the Partner Pitch One Sheet Templates.

3. Show that people are attending your events.

Last but not least, people get people. If you can show that people are attending your event, and they're telling other people, you can display that. That's the type of stuff that actually drives attendance.

So, you're gonna want to show and get RSVPs early and often as you can. Then get those people to commit and tell their friends about it. We found that that is the number one way to drive RSVPs.

Invest, Confirm, Lock it In

You want to use reciprocity to drive attendance, and a way to do so is to get the attendee to invest. You wanna confirm that they made a good decision with that three-step process, and, last but not least, you want to lock it in with a specific, personal confirmation that they are gonna meet someone on site.

Best of luck with your events.

You want to use reciprocity to drive attendance, and a way to do so is to get the attendee to invest. You wanna confirm that they made a good decision with that three-step process, and, last but not least, you want to lock it in with a specific, personal confirmation that they are gonna meet someone on site.

Best of luck with your events.

Bring Out the Urgency

Urgency is one of the most powerful techniques that I've seen in terms of driving ticket sales. You can use urgency in things like "Early bird sales end soon," or you can say something like, "We're almost full," or "This is going to be a really important event for you to attend." Drive that point home with frequency and urgency, and make sure, in all your communications, to go through that checklist, G-I-V-E.

After you've outlined every single step in the process, your next step is to figure out who the major players are. This might be someone who's actually at your organization, or an agency, or even a freelancer. You're trying to figure out who's involved. I find that a really great framework for figuring this out and defining it in a very visible and transparent way is something called the RACI model. It's a great model that I see some of the top event planners that we work with use.

How RACI Works:

RACI stands for responsible, accountable, consulted and informed.

(1) Responsible is the person who ensures that the work gets done.
(2) Accountable is the person that actually executes the work. Who presses "play," clicks "go," presses "send."
(3) Consulted is the person who gives approval that this work has been completed.
(4) Informed is the person who's an FYI for that stage.

A quick example: during the promotional stage, the person who is responsible might be your demand gen person. This is somebody who has to make sure that the right people are invited and we get the right RSVPs. The person accountable is the person who actually presses "send." That might be your marketing ops person or a promoter that's involved in the event. Consulted, is a leader in the promotional stage or VP marketing or VP sales. This is somebody who needs to make sure the right guest list is being promoted.

Probably informed for the promotional stage is your CEO or a salesperson who just needs to know that we're sending out invitations, or your client's RSVP. That's how you RACI. And your job is to RACI each of these different segments. This process is something that we call roleing [SP] up, R-O-L-E, roleing up. I found that identifying who is involved and what they need to do at early, early stages in the process, is paramount to having a great event. You really want to understand the players and what they're supposed to do, and to communicate that early and often.

Rolling Out: Timelines and Deadlines

The next step in this process is called rolling out -- that's identifying when. We know who and we know what they need to do, but when do they need to do it?

As you can see, this rolling out process looks a lot like a Gantt chart. We've layered on top of themselves all of these different stages. You want the promotional phase and the creative phase to overlap because we're going to learn a lot in the very early stages of our promotions. We're going to know how we might need to tweak things, and you need that creative team involved in the process. You do want to create deadlines. Make sure that everything has a clear beginning and a clear end, otherwise, I found things just don't get done.

The Final Step: Pulling It All Together

1. Get everyone involved early

I can't tell you how often I see people overlook getting the entire team, or at least as many people who fall under the responsible category as possible involved in the process early and often. If you can, get everyone in the room during the ideation stage. If not the ideation stage, make sure they're in the creative stage. I love the old adage, "If they plan the fight, they won't fight the plan." So you wanna get them involved.

2. Use data

Use data. I like to use data at different stages of the process. You can use data and measurement as an energizing tool, as your energizing bunny. The best way to feed this bunny is with carrots. But, you might also use the stick. What I meant to say is you can use a dashboard to show people how many RSVPs somebody is driving and get them really excited, or you can show them where you're not hitting, what's not working for you as a way to get people onboard and focused on their goal. I do find that using data at every single stage helps you sprint this marathon that is an event.

3. Communicate a lot

Last but not least, you want to communicate. Communicate a lot. I always would say to my event planning team, "Our entire job, not just part of our job, our entire job is communication, both with our attendees externally and with our team internally." Setting up a communication cadence early in the process, makes this whole machine work.

That's our role up and roll out process that we've found work great for us. Have any extra tips we missed? Let us know how you run your events in the comments!

Here’s an example of how to build a pass-along story from events that I hosted a couple of months ago for some of our top clients. Our clients are some of the top event marketers in the world and we brought them all together in a cool venue here in New York.

I went with my team in advance to think about what emotion we wanted them to feel. The emotion that we came to after a lot of debate was them to feel love, and appreciation for their job and for themselves and for the craft that they do.

That's where we started, but how do we get them to feel love? We threw out a lot of ideas for storylines that they would take away. One of the most important things that we could focus on was the format of the event and how their experience would play out throughout the day.

Fast forward 'till after the event. I wanted to test this pass-along story and see how effective we were. I called up a lot of the different attendees and asked them, what was the story that you told when you got home? More than that, who did you tell it to? Retell me that story.

The stories, more often than not, weren't really about the content that they learned or a certain data point that they heard. Instead they started talking about what had happened. They spoke about somebody that they met at a cocktail hour or a piece of swag that they're really excited about. Or even a musical interlude that had happened right before a speaker such as the violinist and how amazing she was. That's what they focused on.

What was even better was that interwoven into each of those stories was the emotion, and they were using interesting adjectives. Over and over again, we started to hear words like excitement and appreciation and inclusion. It was those adjectives that we wrote down because that was our goal, and our focus.

Remember, it's not about how you communicate your content and what you say. Instead, it's really about what people are really going to remember inside of these stories and how they feel.

❤️ Special thanks to our Tech lead, Guillermo de la Puente, for his hard work on this project.

The key to a successful event is making your event memorable. Here's how to turn your event into a pass-along story.

author

Ben Hindman

Ben Hindman is co-founder and CEO of Splash, the country's fastest-growing event marketing platform that helps businesses and brands more effectively market through their events. An event planner turned tech entrepreneur, events are in Ben’s DNA. Prior to starting Splash, Ben was the Director of Events at Thrillist, where he produced large-scale events from concerts to mystery fly-aways.

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